


Reading Volumes

by scribblemyname



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Archery, F/M, First Meeting, Library AU, Mutual Pining, ballerina au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 16:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4186239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/scribblemyname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He loved her taste in books. Clint would shelve the materials she left out on the tables, thumb running over the spines as he read off title and author and just wondered for a moment who she was and what kind of person would read through books like <em> To Kill a Mockingbird </em> on the heels of Asimov's <em>Foundation Trilogy</em> then move over to romance novels and economics tomes. She was eclectic in her interests and focused in her reading, plowing through volume after volume in sequence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reading Volumes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twinagonies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinagonies/gifts).



> Going with an Olympic archer path backstory for Clint and pulling lots of thematic elements for the AU changes from the comics.

The girl at the library had the most striking red hair Clint had ever seen. Her mouth moved over the shape of foreign words as she read English books, and the itch to know what she was saying built up in him almost painfully in the three weeks since she'd first shown up.

She was a patron. He was just a librarian. She didn't check out the books, instead choosing to read them there and leave them there, and she never needed help finding things. Which made it really hard to think of any good way to introduce himself. It probably didn't matter anyway, he told himself. She was way out of his league.

* * *

The boy at the library was intriguing. Natasha liked to come in and sit where she could always have him in her peripheral vision as she worked her way through the list of American classics Dottie and James had recommended to her. She wanted to become more like her adoptive country, think like an American, and then she'd seen the guy who worked there.

He wasn't in any of her classes, and he seemed to use a signed language with the one guy who came in to talk with him from time to time—a brother? She liked to watch his hands on the books, his confident motion like he too knew what it meant to perform, the way he seemed to miss nothing that happened in the library even if apparently, he couldn't hear very well.

He was intriguing. She liked him.

* * *

He loved her taste in books. Clint would shelve the materials she left out on the tables, thumb running over the spines as he read off title and author and just wondered for a moment who she was and what kind of person would read through books like _To Kill a Mockingbird_ on the heels of Asimov's _Foundation Trilogy_ then move over to romance novels and economics tomes. She was eclectic in her interests and focused in her reading, plowing through volume after volume in sequence.

His hand paused on a book of American Sign Language stacked atop a volume about Deaf History and Culture. He hadn't worn external hearing aids in years, and he wondered for the first time if he too was being watched.

* * *

She lingered on certain books, hiding them between the rest. Natasha's childhood had been starved for love and family after she was orphaned in the fire, but she still remembered the fairy tales her grandmother used to murmur over her as she fell asleep and the histories and engineering her father loved, and she remembered joining the ballet company as a young girl and befriending Dottie and James and Yelena and learning beauty mingled with pain.

Natasha didn't want the fairy tales to be obvious. Fairy tales were for children. She kept the history books next to textbooks and homework lest anyone realize she read them for sentimental value and the memory they evoked of her father's dry voice over the drier words. She rubbed softly over the books about ballet, cracked open their covers, and read a few pages before returning them to the shelf before they ever got to the table.

She was barely old enough to be on her own in this country, and she was utterly alone. Perhaps that is why she exchanged book recommendations with her former fellow dancers over text and the internet and watched the boy with his sure, graceful movements that reminded her of home and his brother that made her ache for her own family again.

* * *

Clint didn't even know how to broach the subject. He shouldn't. He should let it go. She was beautiful and fascinating and _reading books about sign language_ as she mouthed words in something other than English, but he wasn't a creepy stalker and he wasn't about to become one.

Finally, he tucked a small flyer for an archery event into the ASL book he had used the most when his brother was pounding into his head the need to communicate. He almost changed his mind. He knew what books she liked best and could have chosen a book he knew she'd pick up, but again, not a creepy stalker and he only wanted to invite her somewhere if she was actually interested.

* * *

The flyer was intriguing; its location more so. Natasha flipped it over and under her fingers and decided that archery was the kind of skill that could produce the graceful, confident motion of his hands and the sure strength in his arms and shoulders. Then she realized where she had found it and nearly smacked herself upside the head.

Stupid, stupid. He had noticed her watching him and reading the books that might help her understand.

* * *

She showed up at the event and watched the archers compete, pretending she wasn't keeping her eyes open for intense storm-colored eyes and short, spiky brown hair and signing hands. The librarian and his brother were both there, both competing, and both very, very good.

She swallowed down the odd feeling of want it gave her to watch him and left as soon as he fired his last arrow.

* * *

Clint gathered back in the scattered books from the redhead's table and paused on the coffee table book of ballet photography. A slip of paper poked out from the top and he pulled it out to read off the event details. A ballet.

He'd never been to the ballet. He'd look like a fool.

* * *

He harassed his brother and borrowed something to wear from a friend and went. She was dancing, arms stretched out above her, feet flying, the epitome of a breathtaking sort of grace he had never actually imagined seeing.

There was music, but he couldn't hear it well over the crowd around him with its rustling, disjointed noises spiking and falling. Finally, he took the hearing aids out and just watched, letting the vision of her dancing drown out his other senses.

* * *

She looked for him after the performance. She was certain she'd seen him there, but by the time she left the wings, he was gone.

* * *

Clint was shelving and straightening when suddenly a beautiful girl with striking red hair stood directly in front of him, as though she'd materialized out of dreams and air itself. He caught his breath in surprise.

She lifted her hands tentatively and signed, _'I'm Natasha. You?'_

It took him a moment to find his voice and answer, "Clint. My name is Clint."


End file.
